Audiences have been spoilt for choice recently if they’re
looking for an action film based on a classic fairytale. The likes of Hansel
and Gretel and Snow White have been re-imagined and put into a movie that would
be more enjoyable to fans of action. Here we have Jack and the Beanstalk being
told slightly differently, in Jack, The Giant Slayer. Unfortunately, a large
number of cringe-inducing cliché’s and far too much forced humour hold this
flick back from reaching the level of entertainment set by others in this
category.
Jack, The Giant Slayer tells the story of a young farmhand –
Jack – who accompanies the Royal Guard up a beanstalk in pursuit of a princess,
in the hopes of winning her heart. It offers more of a story than just
curiosity, as the original story goes, which I suppose could be considered
good, but it’s hardly original, and doesn’t really offer anything that we haven’t
seen before.
Atop the beanstalk, Jack and the guards find themselves in
unknown and hostile territory, which they soon find is inhabited by angry and
violent giants. These giants want to return to earth and take revenge on the
kin of the king who trapped them there many years ago. Enter Jack, the Giant
Slayer!
Whilst his name certainly sounds dramatic, he hardly earns
it. The name of the film itself is somewhat misleading, considering that no
giants are slain until an hour into the film, and Jack’s total kill count
throughout the whole thing being a whopping…three. I’m not sadistic, a film isn’t
disappointing because too few people die, but with a name like “the Giant
Slayer”, I was hoping for more actual giant slaying. Can you imagine if Buffy
only killed 3 vampires? It wouldn’t be great.
But hey, even though the giant slaying is somewhat missing
from the film, it would still be possible to make an exciting and tense film
right? Wrong. The best word I would use when describing my mood when watching
this film is bored. After two hours of people running around, not really doing
much, then a hugely anticlimactic final “battle” that boils down to little more
than a glorified tug of war, by the time the credits rolled, all I could think
of was a long list of better uses for the two hours I’d just spent.
There were a few points where I felt that the film could be
saved by some pretty effects. The homeland of the giants atop the beanstalk is
certainly a colourful world, but even this is sullied by some truly awful CGI
on both the giants and the beanstalk. Plenty of large set pieces show that this
film really tries to be a blockbuster, but they look absolutely dreadful, and
at times laughable.
I wasn’t just laughing at the effects though. Some of the
acting is atrocious. In fact no, most of the acting is atrocious. The characters
are overdramatic, the dialogue is horribly written and the delivery is usually
just as bad. This is particularly odd, considering the likes of Ewan McGregor,
Ian McShane and Bill Nighy lending their talent to the cast, but even these
stars seemed like they were performing below their usual standard.
One thing I didn’t laugh at is the humour. Forced and dry,
the jokes just made me sad. The film aims to keep itself lighthearted, but
there were too many moments where the director could have just walked onto the
set, looked directly at the camera and shouted “Hey! Wasn’t that funny!”. Okay,
the film isn’t a comedy, but that doesn’t excuse how predictable the gags were,
and how depressingly forced they seemed.
Jack, the Giant Slayer is not a film worth wasting your money
or time on. A few pretty backdrops can’t make up for the long list of flaws
that this film has. If I had to choose a final word to top off the review, that
word would simply be: don’t.
No comments:
Post a Comment